Speak with an advisor in confidence.

Whether you or a loved one is suffering from addiction, the most common emotion associated with seeking treatment for the first time is anxiety. We understand that the amount of questions you have and the emotions they evoke may feel overwhelming.

The first step is to know that your questions and feelings are normal. The next step is to talk to someone about them.

Breakout

What is security? Is it protection? Mercy? A mere feeling? A state of comfort? Or is there more to it?

I found it once, or so I thought. I had a very stable job, a roof over my head, steady income, reliable transportation, and a tightly-knit family. Seemed stable enough. Indeed, I thought, the Lord must by my shepherd. I had everything I needed. I would laugh, sometimes cry, and I upheld my commitments. My stable life kept me in place, protected and secure from the prevailing winds of change. I was so comfy.

It would be an exaggeration to say alcohol removed my suit of armor, leaving me exposed. It certainly did nothing to help, though. If anything, the security was the main reason why I felt safe to drink. I began to lose this protection, bit by bit, through the natural ebb and flow of time. The death of family members yielded the loss of my job, and my car went to shit. Money was hard to come by and my family relations floundered.

In this state, with my armor stripped. I felt vulnerability for the first time in a while. I was unhappy. True powerlessness sunk into the core, and for a while it was just me and the bottle.

“How did this happen?” I though. Looking back, the path I was walking was plain as the nose on my face, but, like my nose, I could not see it. I had nowhere to turn, so I sat with myself. I began to recover, taking things as they came, making an objective observation each time, non-judgmental. Soon I learned how restricted I had been. A sitting man could have defeated me in my armor. All he would have had to do is stick out a foot. In my blind arrogance I would have fallen, unable to get up with all that excess weighing me down.

So now, I am free. Free to experience the joys, the sorrows, the mystically profound, and the familiar, all unencumbered by the shackles I forged. I can be easily led to green pastures and drink from clear waters. Do I miss my self-imposed burdens? The false protectors I once relied on? Perhaps. For if it were not for these pretenses, the false and unconscious gods of the flesh, then I would not have learned that true strength is vulnerability.